... was born Anna Maria Grosholz in Strasbourg, in 1761. Her father died in the Seven Years' War, two months before she was born. Her mother became housekeeper to Dr. Philippe Curtius – a physician, practising in Bern, Switzerland.
Curtius began to make wax models to illustrate anatomy, before moving on to portraiture. In 1765 he was persuaded to give up his medical career and move to Paris, where he could practice wax modelling as a fine art. In that year he made a waxwork of Jeanne Bécu – who would later become Marie Jean du Barry, the mistress of King Louis XV. Curtius taught Anna Maria the art of wax modelling; she created her first figure, of Voltaire, in 1777, and in the 1780s she made portraits of celebrities including Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. She also taught the children of the royal family, which led to her arrest during the Reign of Terror as a royalist sympathiser. But instead of being executed she was employed in making waxworks of other victims, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Marat, and Robespierre.
Dr. Curtius died in 1794, leaving his collection of waxworks to Anna. The following year she married Francois Tussaud, a civil engineer. They had three children: a daughter who died after birth, and two sons named Joseph and François.
Following the Treaty of Amiens, which was signed in March 1802 and ended the French Revolutionary Wars, Madame Tussaud accepted an invitation to exhibit her works in London. This came from Paul Philidor, a German–born magician – whose show at the Lyceum Theatre, entitled Phantasmagoria, had proved to be a great success.
Unfortunately for Madame Tussaud, her show failed to enjoy the same success – not least because Philidor took half of her profits. In 1803 she relocated to Edinburgh, and she spent the next 33 years touring Britain. With the Napoleonic Wars in full swing, she was unable to return to France; she had taken her son Joseph, who had been four years old at the time, to England with her, but her husband remained in France and the couple never saw each other again.
In 1822 the Tussauds' other son, François, travelled to England and joined the family business. Thirteen years later their first permanent exhibition was set up in Baker Street, London, on an upper floor of the Baker Street Bazaar. The Chamber of Horrors was popular with visitors from the outset, and was mentioned in Punch as early as 1845.
Marie Tussaud died peacefully in London in 1850, aged 88. Meanwhile, François Tussaud had become chief artist for the exhibition on his mother's retirement. He was succeeded in turn by his son Joseph, who was succeeded by his son John Theodore Tussaud. By 1883, the restricted space and rising cost of the Baker Street site prompted Joseph to commission a new building at the location on Marylebone Road where the exhibition can still be seen. The new galleries opened on 14 July 1884, and were a great success.
By 1889 the family were unable to agree on the financial management of the business, and it was sold to a group of businessmen led by Edwin Josiah Poyser. At the time of writing (in 2020), Madame Tussauds is owned by Merlin Entertainments, whose portfolio also includes Alton Towers, Warwick Castle and almost forty Legoland parks and adventure centres around the world. Tussauds itself has exhibitions at around 25 permanent locations worldwide.
© Haydn Thompson 2020